The 10th European Bioplastics Conference will open in a week from now in Berlin. I will be attending the two days, November 5 and 6, and report on the conference. On this occasion the winner of the 10th Global Bioplastics Award will be announced.
The Global Bioplastics Award recognizes innovation, success and achievements by manufacturers, processors, brand owners, or users of bioplastic materials. To be eligible for consideration in the awards scheme the proposed company, product, or service must have been developed or have been on the market during 2014 or 2015.
The list of the five finalists, company/product has just been released. The selection is made by an international jury of five experts from the academic world, the press and industry associations.
Here below is an extract of their submission listed by alphabetical order.
- Alki (France) – Kuskoa Bi, the first bioplastic chair on the market
The bioplastic used to manufacture the Kuskoa Bi shell is based on polylactic acid PLA, made from plant based renewable sugar like strarch or sugar cane. It is a fully recyclable material. Alki website
- MHG Meredian Holdings Group (USA) – First certified biodegradable fresh waterfishing lures
Produced by Bill Lewis Lures, these are made out of pure polyhydroxyalcanoates (PHA) produced by MHG. Partnering with Rat L Trap to make these popular lures in a biodegradable form is a big step forward in reducing plastic pollution produced by the fishing industry. In addition to performance, there has been positive feedback regarding the pilot production of the PHA Rat L Traps, including its ability to weld together better than the petrochemical legacy plastic .MHG website
- Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. and Sharp Corp. (Japan)- Crack resistant bio based plastic smartphone screen
Sharp Corporation (Osaka, Japan) has chosen Mitsubishi Chemical’ (MCC) biobased engineering plastic DURABIO™ for the front panel of its new smartphone, the AQUOS CRYSTAL 2. The choice marks a world first as bio based engineering plastic has ever been used on the front panel of any smartphone. Durabio™ is a biobased engineering plastic made from plant derived isosorbide, which features excellent performance as it offers higher resistance to impact, heat, and weather than conventional engineering plastics. In addition, it has excellent transparency and low optical distortion. Kagaku website
- Schulman (USA) and AINIA-AIMPLAS (Spain) – A novel bioresin for compostable flexible tubes in cosmetics
A. Schulman, together with the consortium of companies formed by Germaine de Capuccini, Petroplast, and the Ainia Aimplas alliance, has successfully developed the first biodegradable flexible tube for cosmetic products. In particular, the A. Schulman’s R&D team succeeded in finding the appropriate compostable material to replace conventional polyethylene in flexible packaging tubes for cosmetics. The new bioresin is a reinforced biopolymers alloy, obtained by reactive extrusion, which can be particularly processed into a tube using conventional extrusion blow moulding equipment. A. Schulman website
- Tetra Pak (Sweden) – Tetra Rex® Bio based The world’s first fully renewable package
Tetra Pak launched Tetra Rex Bio based, the world’s first fully bio-sourced liquid food carton package — solely produced from renewable, recyclable and traceable FSC™ certified packaging and bio based plastic derived entirely from sugarcane (Braskem’s bio PE). After launching world’s first FSC labelled cartons in 2007, and introducing caps made from certified and traceable sugar cane (bio PE) in 2011 the next step was to combine this development of certified paperboard and bio plastic into the world’s first fully renewable carton.
Tetrapak website
Unfortunately, the latter does not fully fall, in my definition, within the scope of bioplastics that are both bio-sourced AND biodegradable. However, it is in the list of the 5 finalists for the 10th Bioplastics award.